88 found abusing drugs in five-star hotel

Patrons were taken to the local police station after a predawn raid on a five-star hotel bar in Bien Hoa Town, Dong Nai Province on December 8, 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Thai Ha.

A pre-dawn police raid a bar inside a five-star hotel in southern Dong Nai Province found 88 customers aged between 18 and 30 using banned drugs.

In the early hours of Sunday, police seized 18 pills and six packets of white powder suspected to be synthetic drugs while raiding the bar Cosmo inside the five-star hotel Central Park in the province's Bien Hoa Town.

Among 190 customers and the bar’s staff taken to the police station for drug tests, 88, 67 men and 21 women, tested positive.

In September, 150 others were found using drugs at this bar.

In June, Dong Nai police had cracked down on a local night club and caught 200 patrons using banned substances, making it the biggest such bust in the province in the last two years.

Vietnamese police have recently intensified their crackdown on drug abuse at nightclubs and karaoke parlors across the country.

Despite having some of the world’s toughest drug laws, drug trafficking and use remain rampant in Vietnam.

The country has also become a key trafficking hub for narcotics in and around the "Golden Triangle," a lawless wedge of land straddling China, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar that dominates the Asian illegal drug markets.